Paul of Dune

by Kevin J. Anderson

  As she scanned the bodies strewn in front of the stage, Irulan saw bent arms and legs, gruesome, twisted forms, a flash of fine blue fabric. Rugi! Her heart froze. She scrambled down from the dais, picked her way through the dead, and rushed to where her little sister had been seated. The young woman had been so proud of her prominent position close to the Emperor’s throne, formally representing Salusa Secundus.

  “Rugi!” In the background noise, Irulan strained to hear a response, even a moan of pain. The silence now was more horrific than the screams had been.

  Determined, unwilling to admit to herself what she knew she would find, Irulan began searching for the young girl, the smallest of her four sisters. She had never really been close to Rugi — the thirteen-year disparity in their ages had been too great. By the time Rugi was born, Irulan had already finished much of her basic instruction and managed to embroil herself in court politics on Kaitain. She had watched her father’s manipulations, his games of alliances, the assassination attempts, and his palpable scorn for his “useless” daughters. And since Rugi was the youngest, Shaddam had made no secret that he considered her to be the most useless of all.

  Irulan called her name again. Continuing her search, she stumbled on a slack-jawed, glassy-eyed man — a dead nobleman with bright handkerchiefs stuffed into his pockets like some kind of rank insignia. She rolled him away, angry at the corpse, as if it had intentionally tried to hinder her.

  Beneath him lay Rugi’s thin-limbed and childlike body. Irulan grabbed her sister by the shoulders, pulled her up, and touched her neck, desperately feeling for a pulse. “Oh, Rugi! Dear Rugi!”

  She shook the girl. A dribble of blood trailed from Rugi’s lifeless mouth, and her heart did not beat. Her eyes were half open but did not blink. Moaning, Irulan cradled her sister’s body, letting the girl’s head roll limply against her. Rugi had never understood what a pawn she’d been.

  Paul walked to the main aisle, flanked by a dozen surviving Fedaykin, including Korba. The investigation had already begun, and Korba’s men were combing through the bodies, searching for survivors and a perpetrator. Inspectors used tweezers to pick up evidence from the shattered remains of the elaccawood throne and from the smashed hunter-seekers.

  “Find out who did this!” Paul’s voice cut the air like an arctic wind.

  “I don’t care how long it takes or how many people you must interrogate, but bring me answers. Learn who was responsible… and I will deal with them.”

  “Muad’Dib, we can be sure it has something to do with Memnon Thorvald.” suggested Korba.

  But Paul was not convinced. “We can be sure of nothing.”

  Filled with grief, Irulan looked up at him, feeling her own accusation rippling from her in waves. “You gave my sister a promise of safety! You swore to protect her, granted her Imperial security.” She cradled the young woman’s body, as if to prove his lies. She had blocked away any expression of feelings toward Paul for the past several years, but she did not want to control the flood of emotions she felt now.

  Paul had no answer for her. So many people hated the Emperor Muad’Dib.

  Each morning when I open my eyes, my first thoughts are of violence.

  —Tleilaxu lab recording of the Kwisatz Haderach candidate

  Count Fenring had never seen the Tleilaxu men so frantic in all the years he had lived among them. Eerie alarm horns hooted through the city and echoed across the turgid lake water. Lady Margot looked at him, and he mirrored her sudden concern. “Marie — we must find Marie!”

  Moments later, a uniformed security officer pounded on the sealed door of their quarters and demanded that they go with him to Ereboam’s main laboratory complex. Without explanation, he rushed them into the backseat of a groundcar. Fenring could detect the man’s urgency, but knew this mid-caste underling would have no answers for him.

  The vehicle raced through the narrow streets of the city, and Fenring feared the emergency had something to do with their little daughter. From all directions, alarms sounded, and multicolored emergency lights flashed on buildings. He suspected that either Marie had caused the crisis, or Thallo had.

  A harried Ereboam met them at the entrance to the central lab. “Your child and Thallo have barricaded themselves inside one of the chambers!” With his snow-white hair in disarray, the albino researcher looked even paler than ever. His spoiled-milk skin showed splotches of angry pink, and he shouted to be heard over the alarms and clamor. “They disabled the security systems, and have accessed and completely drained our stockpile of a new nerve poison, enough to kill every living creature in Thalidei. They will wipe out our programs, our research — our very lives! Why would your daughter do this? What plot have you Fenrings hatched?”

  Lady Margot shouted back as they followed him into the building at a run. “Marie knows nothing of your security systems or machinery. Your Thallo is the mastermind here.” Ereboam did not seem to want to believe it.

  They reached the chamber door, where sluggish lower-caste Tleilaxu workers operated drilling equipment. Nearby, another group unleashed controlled, silent explosives in an attempt to knock down the wall itself, but their own security systems thwarted them. So far, Fenring saw only a small dent in the outer hatch. More equipment was on the way, but he doubted there would be enough time.

  “Talk to your daughter through the intercom. Tell her to stop this!” Ereboam activated the communication system. “Find out what she has done to corrupt our Kwisatz Haderach candidate.”

  “Ahh, I believe your Thallo was thoroughly unstable without any help from Marie.”

  “Impossible. He is faultless!”

  “So perfect that he is about to kill us all with poison gas — including our daughter.” Lady Margot hurried to the intercom. “But I’ll try.”

  Frantic Tleilaxu men scuttled out of her way, some of them glaring at her, apparently for no other reason than that she was a female. When his wife spoke into the intercom, Count Fenring recognized the command inflection of Bene Gesserit Voice. She knew precisely how to manipulate her daughter. “Marie! If you are in there, open this door at once.”

  The girl did not — or could not — respond.

  Fenring had deep concerns for Marie’s safety. Even though she was not his biological daughter, he had been her father from the moment of her birth. And he had pinned so many hopes and plans on her special abilities. We need her!

  ON THE OTHER side of the sealed blast doors, Marie heard the call on the intercom and noted the compelling intonation, but her mother had taught her how to identify and resist Voice. Not even her nanny Tonia could command the little girl, and now Marie resisted Lady Margot’s orders. She had to. By remaining here close to Thallo, at least she had a chance of averting the disaster.

  But defeating a highly advanced Kwisatz Haderach candidate would require her utmost skills. This, she knew, would be more difficult than all of her previous vigorous exercises. This was what she had been born and trained for.

  Obviously, Thallo was convinced she could do nothing to stop him. His classically handsome face appeared on the verge of rapture, hypnotized by the colored patterns in the control panel. His fingers danced efficiently over the pressure pads, making adjustments, shutting down safety systems and interlocks, ensuring that the pressurized nerve gas built up continuously and spread to all simultaneous release points around the entire city.

  Over the intercom, both her mother and Fenring continued to shout and plead, desperate for some response.

  Slowly and silently, Marie melted out of the aberration’s peripheral vision, so that she could get a good running start against him. She considered removing her shoes, since her bare feet were hard and deadly, easier to inflict a precise killing blow. Bene Gesserit training. But with the bioreactors reaching overload, every second mattered. The gush of nerve toxin would kill everyone. She did not dare risk Thallo noticing her.

  He doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head, and his prescience — if he has it — d
oesn’t seem to see me, either. Nevertheless, Thallo’s hearing was acute, his reactions amazingly swift… and he was determined to die in a huge incident.

  Marie, however, was just as determined to live.

  She had become his friend, showed this awkwardly “perfect” Kwisatz Haderach that he was not alone in his alienation. Marie had also trained with Thallo, fought against him in mock battles, and she was proficient in the best Bene Gesserit killing techniques along with Count Fenring’s assassination skills. She was not a child; she was a weapon. Killing even a Kwisatz Haderach was not beyond her abilities.

  Coiling all of her energy, summoning every skill she had been taught, Marie launched herself toward Thallo, a guided human projectile. She saw a muscle flicker on the back of his neck. He began to turn, blindingly fast. She had anticipated his reaction, though — had planned for it, in fact. His hand blurred up, but he hesitated for the merest fraction of a second, either reluctant to release the controls… or afraid to hurt her.

  With the rigid tips of both feet, Marie slammed into his neck. She heard the cracking sound of breaking bone.

  Thallo’s head bent forward at a sharp, unnatural angle. His face slammed into the panel, and he slumped to the floor. As his fingers slid away from the controls, she pushed aside the heavy body of the would-be Kwisatz Haderach. No longer concerned about him, Marie concentrated on the complex banks of controls. She would have only moments to throttle back the pressure release.

  OUT IN THE corridor, Count Fenring heard the explosions rippling beneath the city. A deep thump came, and then another, much closer. Ereboam wailed, “It is too late!”

  But the rumbling seemed distant, the angry thrumming of energy discharges fading away. Fenring looked at his wife, saw her eyes filled with love and fear. The Count cocked his eyebrow at the researcher, speaking harshly, “Perhaps you should find out exactly what is happening, hmmm?”

  Tleilaxu researchers scurried to their update panels and control systems, speaking on comlines and chattering as they received results. Dr. Ereboam glanced around in amazement, his shock of white hair mussed. Presently he said, “You heard the explosions, but the discharge was… focused. The nerve gas was released into the lake, and the water reaction will render it inert.” He spun to the Count and his Lady. “Thallo has averted the disaster!”

  “Even so, I wouldn’t suggest going outside without a mask for some time,” Fenring said, still struggling with his deep concern. “Are you certain the lake water can neutralize the chemical?”

  “Poisons, by their very nature, are quite reactive. Some are activated by water, others are made safe.”

  Before he could continue his lecture, the heavy vault door opened, and Marie emerged, looking small and strong. Behind her, in transparent containment cells, nine Thallo clones lay dead, and on the mezzanine control deck above, the failed Kwisatz Haderach lay sprawled with his head lolling on a limp stalk of broken neck. Oddly, he wore a serene smile on his face.

  Marie hugged her parents, then gave them the most innocent of expressions. “My friend was broken, and I couldn’t fix him. He wasn’t right.”

  That one says he is my friend. The other one declares himself my enemy. With all my prescience, why is it so hard to tell the difference?

  —from Conversations with Muad’Dib by the PRINCESS IRULAN

  Korba began the investigation of the assassination attempt with high fervor, exactly as Paul expected him to do. Swordmaster Bludd, clearly a hero for his bravery in shielding Princess Irulan and for knocking Paul and Chani clear of the bomb blast, had nearly died from his poisoned wound. Once he gathered sufficient strength, Bludd left the medics and retired to his quarters to recover.

  Meanwhile, Paul shut himself inside the enormous citadel, not out of fear or paranoia, but because he was so overwhelmed with fury that he did not trust himself to be seen among the populace. Though he’d had murky dreams, his prescience had been unable to prevent this. Such a reckless, hateful attack against him, with no regard for all the innocents who had been slain in the attempt.

  Duke Leto must have felt like this after the wedding-day massacre sucked him into the bloody War of Assassins; it was why his father became such a hardened man, a protective psychological response that anchored him against the tragedies. At the time, Paul had not understood the depths of his father’s difficulties, but he did now.

  Investigators stripped the Celestial Audience Hall down to its structural components. Chemical signatures were analyzed. Work logs were inspected to discover who might have had an opportunity to set up such a plot. The conspiracy had to be large and widespread; too many pieces had fit together perfectly. Unfortunately, by ordering his soldiers to blast the panels from which the hunter-seekers had emerged, Korba had also destroyed some of the evidence.

  The modified assassination devices were traced to an exiled Ixian merchant who had provided many technological toys and amusements for Muad’Dib. But the man’s ship had recently — and conveniently — been destroyed in a small Jihad skirmish on Crell.

  Many of the new servants hired for the Great Surrender ceremony were interrogated, and an unfortunately high percentage of them died during the aggressive questioning. Korba was certain they must be hiding something from him, even though no one divulged any useful information.

  Despite the nagging objections of his conscience, Paul allowed the merciless inquisition to continue. Innocent deaths? There had already been plenty, and there would be more. He even considered recruiting Bene Gesserit Truthsayers, but decided against the idea, because he could not entirely convince himself that the Sisterhood was not involved.

  But whom could he trust? Paul had only a few faithful confidantes — Chani, Stilgar, Alia. He could also trust his mother, and Gurney Halleck, but they were both far away on Caladan. Perhaps Korba, too, and Bludd. What about Irulan, though? He neither trusted nor distrusted her. She had lost her sister in the attack, and his truth-sense picked up no deception on her part. Could it have been a botched Corrino scheme, with Shaddam’s youngest daughter as a sacrificial lamb? Or some hitherto unknown Harkonnen heir?

  Other names and questions surfaced in Paul’s mind, but he set them aside. He didn’t want to go too far along that line of thinking, because paranoia could drive him mad. I must be more alert than ever. New security measures must be established to keep my enemies off balance.

  Not surprisingly, amidst the uproar, Memnon Thorvald dispatched a pompous-sounding message through disguised intermediaries, taking credit for the massacre. Expressing satisfaction from his hidden planetary base, he crowed about how he had infiltrated the Emperor’s security and struck close to Muad’Dib’s loved ones. But too many of the details in his claims were wrong, his narrative rife with contradictions about what had actually occurred. It appeared that in this instance, at least, Thorvald was merely being an opportunist, attempting to use the tragedy to his advantage. But the rebel leader did not seem knowledgeable enough to have put such an extravagant scheme into place.

  In addition to invoking echoes of the Elaccan flying disks from the wedding-day attack, whoever had assembled this plot knew Paul well enough to choose hunter-seekers, a weapon once used in an attempt to kill him in the Arrakeen residency after he first arrived on Dune. This time, where one hunter-seeker might fail, more could succeed — especially given the variety of poisons. The plotter, or plotters, understood Muad’Dib’s abilities quite well.

  But not well enough to kill him.

  The sheer mechanics of installing so many hunter-seekers and the bomb beneath the elaccawood throne required extended, unfettered access to that section of the citadel construction site. Looking into this, Korba’s Qizarate seized all workers involved in the project and questioned them with more fanaticism than finesse. Oddly, many of the suspect workers had recently been killed on the streets, the victims of random robberies or assaults. The ones who remained alive passed the closest questioning.

  When the spotlight of suspicion shone on Korba him
self, he protested vehemently. Documents and testimony proved that he had imposed many alterations to the citadel’s detailed plans, some of them at the last minute. Throughout the construction, Korba had demanded architectural changes that seemed capricious and dictatorial; viewed in the current light, they looked doubly suspicious, opportunities to install booby traps.

  Hearing these questions raised, Paul recalled a time during the Harkonnen occupation, when he and his Fremen band had captured Gurney Halleck and a group of smugglers out on the open desert. After Gurney had revealed to Paul that some of the men were not to be trusted, Korba had been given the task of searching the men carefully. Several of those smugglers had indeed been disguised Sardaukar, but somehow Korba had failed to find the false toenail weapons, the shigawire garrotes in their hair strands, the daggers hidden in their still-suits. An outrageous lapse in security. Had it been intentional even then?

  Listening to Korba take umbrage at the accusations, Paul thought he protested too much. Was it possible that Korba sought to make Muad’Dib into a martyr, using that as a springboard to seize greater religious power for himself? Yes, Paul decided. Korba might very well be capable of that.

  And yet, in the end, Paul’s truthsense convinced him that the man was not lying.

  When Swordmaster Bludd himself became a target of the investigation, Paul knew that Korba was just being thorough. Bludd had thrown himself into the fight without regard to his own safety, had saved Irulan and shielded Paul from the explosion, and nearly died from a poisoned wound.

  Even so, Bludd had brought a body shield, despite Paul’s orders against it. And he had sensed that there was a bomb hidden under the throne. Or had he known?

  Paul felt a cold tingle on his skin.